


The Heaviness that I Hold in My Heart Belongs to Gravity

by tobinlaughing



Category: Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Broken Heart, Domestic Fluff, Ficlet, Fluff, Gen, Grieving, Recovery from Grief, Spoilers, Tony Stark & Thor Friendship, little kids like thor, no big deals, thor likes little kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 06:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19289782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobinlaughing/pseuds/tobinlaughing
Summary: THIS WORK CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME.Thor cannot remember how old the Young Lady Stark is becoming--there has been so much upheaval, and time-travel, and he lost so much time to...beer, if he's being honest. But he knows that her Birthing-Day is in three days and he knows that already she is hungry of mind, as was her father, as is her mother. He has the perfect gift in mind, even if it will not work on Midgard the way it might have on Asgard.





	The Heaviness that I Hold in My Heart Belongs to Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WORK CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME.

The other guests of her age have gone now, and the Young Lady Stark lies on her belly with Thor in the living room of the cabin while the remaining guests (the remaining Avengers) are deep in conversation with the Lady Pepper. Thor is aware that once or twice Carol comes to peek in the room at them, but he and Morgan are utterly absorbed in putting the armillary sphere together.

"Let us try...this," Thor murmurs, taking a recalcitrant piece from the pile and turning it backwards. Morgan nods eagerly, taking the piece from his hands and slotting it carefully into place. She does not say much, but smacks her lips in satisfaction and turns to the rapidly-diminishing pile of parts to find the next piece. 

"You see here, this is Vanaheim," Thor points to the newly-completed arm of the model, a flat plane with three moons that would, on Asgard, swing in stately cycles around the miniature mountains and lakes modeled on the plane. Alas. Here on Midgard, they must be pushed on their orbits and will not move on their own. 

"I had a good friend who was born on Vanaheim," Thor murmurs. 

Morgan doesn't look at him, her chubby fingers deftly assembling the next arm of the model; in her small voice, she asks, "Does he live with you in New Asgard?"

"No," Thor answers quietly. His heart breaks anew, for the moment Sif told him of Hogun's death--a death he might have prevented, were he where he should have been, on Asgard. "No, my good friend has gone to Valhalla to be with his ancestors." 

"Is Valhalla Heaven?" Morgan asks. The Rings of Nidevallir are rapidly taking shape in her small hands. "Captain Steve says my Daddy is in Heaven," she adds, "with Grandpa, who is an ancestor, so maybe your friend and his ancestor is there too, in Heaven."

"I think Valhalla is like Heaven," Thor offers quietly. "It is where good people go to rest and feast and sing when they...when they've died, on Asgard."

"I bet they can get there from Heaven," Morgan decides. With a satisfying click, she places the Forge at the center of Nidevallir's outer ring; Thor gently pushes an empty arm of the model into position, and together they balance the miniature white dwarf on its gimbal. "That way Daddy can go visit your friend, and they can be friends too, and Auntie Tasha can be there. They're going to like it there."

For the moment following this declaration, Thor and Morgan simply watch the armillary sphere move in its limited orbits. The model is three-quarters complete, missing Asgard itself, Aeflheim, and the center-balancing Hel. Once these three are included, the sphere will swing in the slow, complex orbits of the Nine Realms. On Asgard, the stars and planets would have glowed, floated, and moved in their orbits without manual intervention. On Midgard, the model is still beautiful, but strangely, woefully inert. 

"Morgan," comes a quiet voice behind them, and both Thor and Morgan twist from their prone positions to see Pepper in the doorway. "It's bedtime, pumpkin. Holy _cow_ ," she adds, startled, apparently seeing the armillary sphere's true size for the first time. "That's...Morgan, I think we need to ask Thor if he can help you move this to your work room. It can't just be in the living room like this, or someone will step on it."

In the end, it take Thor, Carol, and Rhodey to navigate the massive model to Morgan's work room table, which she hastily clears off for them. "Can we work on it more tomorrow?" She asks Thor from the circle of his arms, when he's picked her up for a requested good-night hug. Her smooth forehead sports a worry-line between her brows, and the corners of her mouth are turned down; it is not a prelude to crying, he thinks, but rather worry that is uncharacteristic of a four or five or six-year-old. He looks to Pepper, who nods quick, teary-eyed permission before turning away to wipe her eyes. 

"I will return tomorrow," Thor promises gravely, "and we will complete the orbits, I think, before dinner-time." Morgan doesn't smile, but her little face eases, and she gives him another tight squeeze before Pepper reclaims her daughter and takes her off to bed. 

He does return in the morning, with Banner, to find that Morgan has Hel partially assembled already and is only lacking another pair of hands to lift the heavy piece into place, where it balances the orbits of the other realms. Banner and Pepper leave to walk a circuit of the lake while Thor begins to tell Morgan of Yggdrasil, the Nine Realms, and how the armillary sphere might have behaved on Asgard. 

They sit in satisfied silence for nearly fifteen minutes after the last piece of Aeflheim has clicked into place, watching the realms swing in slow and stately progression with only a few helpful nudges from Thor. 

It is massive, wider than Morgan is tall and half again as tall itself. If she keeps it assembled she will need a new work shop table, for there isn't room for anything else on her work space.

"There's no Valhalla piece," Morgan says suddenly, breaking into Thor's reverie. "Where's Valhalla go?"

"There isn't a Valhalla piece, Lady Stark," Thor explains, "This is the model of Yggdrasil and the Nine Realms, like in the story, remember? Valhalla isn't a part of Yggdrasil."

"But…" the worry line is back between her downy brows, "...but you said people go from Asgard to Valhalla. They have to be able to get there, but they can't if there's no Valhalla piece. And how can they visit Heaven if there's no pieces for Valhalla and Heaven?" Now her chin is trembling. 

Thor searches frantically for the right words. "Lady Stark, I -- there just isn't a piece for Valhalla, is all," he stammers. That trembling lip is the harbinger of another heartbreak, and he does not have the strength to face it. "The real Valhalla, is, is still there. The real Valhalla, and Heaven too, they're...they're far too large to have pieces on this model. We could not fit the sphere in this house, were we to have pieces for Heaven and for Valhalla."

"Because the scale won't allow it?" Not for the first time since presenting her with the project, Thor blesses Tony's willingness to have explained things like scale and proportion to his daughter. 

"Precisely because the scale won't allow it," Thor confirms. "Both Heaven and Valhalla are such big places, to hold all the souls that have gone there already. They are far too large to fit here, and so they have been...left out, but certainly we do not forget them."

Morgan seems satisfied with this answer. "But I wish it could light up still," she pouts, pushing Midgard to keep it orbiting Hel. She brightens. "I bet I can make a way to light it up," Morgan decides, and in that moment Thor hears Tony so clearly that tears sting the backs of his eyes and he has to blink rapidly to avoid crying in front of Tony's daughter. 

"That's a project for another day, pumpkin," Pepper says from the doorway, and Thor is grateful for the opportunity to swipe his nose in his sleeve while Morgan runs to hug her mommy. 

___

Thor has been off-planet for two months when the new Guardians get a bundle of messages relayed via Carol Danvers. "Sam--Falcon--dammit, _Captain America_ asked me to pass these along when I saw you next," she says as she's preparing to leave the Benatar, after a too-brief visit, and hands over a trio of data sticks: one for Rocket, one for Nebula, and one for Thor. "I'll be in range for a week or two if you want me to bounce anything back by Earth for you," she adds, before the airlock door opens and she streaks away towards her own ship, the Harrison. 

There are video messages from Banner, and Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne...and the last and shortest one is from Rhodey, Pepper Potts, and Morgan Stark. 

" _She's been tinkering with it almost non-stop for the last few weeks_ ," Rhodey's voice says from off-screen--Thor guesses he's the one holding the camera. The image pans slowly across Morgan's workroom. Pepper appears. " _Rhodey and Morgan have been going through some of Tony's smaller-scale prototypes_ ," she explains, with only a hint of a tremor to her voice. " _This is what they've come up with_ …"

The armillary sphere is glowing gently in all its parts: the planes, the planets, the moons, and the orbital rings each have a distinct soft glow, each a different, steady color. Morgan pops into view and waves. " _Hi Thor! I found some LEDs and we did secret wires--_ "

" _She means 'discreet wiring',_ " Rhodey whispers.

" _Yeah! Discreet wires and, um, one of Daddy's old pulsor packs? Rhodey helped me put more r'sisters on it so it wouldn't burn up my lights. Do you like it? I think it's awesomer now and you said, you said in Asgard it would light by itself, a nd now it lights by itself here too!_ "

Morgan is smiling, just a little, her face open and excited. Thor has never seen the expression on her before and is grateful that he will be able to replay this message as many times as he likes. 

" _Mama says I can make it float too, later, when I'm older, and um, I can handle the big r'pulsor without, um, blowing it up._ "

" _Six years old and playing with anti-gravity_ ," Rhodey interjects ruefully. " _I know that at some point we are all going to regret that particular turn of events._ " The image swings wildly, and suddenly Rhodey's face fills the screen. " _You get more than a little credit for that one, Thor, just keep that in mind._ "

The message ends with one more wide shot of the armillary sphere and Morgan Stark standing in front of it. The orbs seem to circle her head like ideas, or electrons: Morgan Stark is literally in her element, the nucleus, the sun beginning to shine again, at long last: it is a lovely image, and the little broken pieces of Thor's hear squeeze closer back together to see Tony's daughter smiling triumphantly. 

" _Bye, Thor! Thank you for my present!_ " Morgan blows a kiss to the camera.


End file.
